In the United States, there are warning labels everywhere. There are labels on prescriptions, food, toys, clothes, cars, houseware. You name it. If it is a manufactured good, there’s a warning. The warnings associated with prescriptions are crazy. You take medication for high blood pressure, and there’s a warning about all the possible side effects. Have you ever listened to the advertisements for over-the-counter prescriptions and pharmaceutical drugs? The warnings are more dyer than the reason you are taking it in the first place. This drug may cause diarrhea, leaky bowels, incontinence, incessant crying, cramping, nose hair growth. It’s just crazy. Any why on earth do we have to warn people not to put their hair dryer in the bathtub with them? You know if they are putting a warning on it that some person tried it at some point. I bet their hair ended up looking like Don King or Phyllis Diller. Bless their hearts.
There are some warning that are helpful like Dangerous Road Ahead, Road Closed Ahead or Bridge Out. I am rather grateful for those warnings. We really should heed those kind of warnings speaking from personal experience on that whole Dangerous Road Ahead thing. Fortunately I wasn’t the one driving and making the decisions because I was a kid. We were assured it would be a short-cut. HA! Not even close. So those warnings are good ones. Just saying.
For those of you who are participating in the fast whether you are doing the Daniel’s Fast or you are fasting social media, TV, caffeine, coffee, etc., I should have given you a warning. I should have told you to expect spiritual warfare and to arm up every day putting on the whole armor of God. If you don’t know what the armor of God is read Ephesians 6:10-20. You see, Satan knows that fasting draws us even closer to God. We are probably the closest to God when we are praising, praying and fasting, and Satan does NOT like that.
Satan will go through all manner of attacks to try to get you to veer off your fast. Maybe it’s your fleshly weakness. Maybe he attacks your family. Maybe he attacks the health. Consider Job. Consider Jesus. Satan will go to extreme lengths to get believers to deny Christ or at the very least become passive, useless Christians.
If you haven’t found what you are to be reading and studying during the fast, I highly recommend studying the armor of God and when Jesus was tempted in Matthew 4:1-11. The armor of God teaches us the different elements of how God prepares us for spiritual warfare. Be sure to read all the way to verse 20 because there are valuable instructions there. Then reading how Jesus withstood being tempted while he was fasting will give you ammunition to use along with your armor. I’ll give you a little secret. Jesus quotes Scripture, but you need to dig and see how it all applies.
So while fasting grows us and matures us in our faith and draws us closer to God, you can count on the enemy to attack. Continue steady on with your fast. Pray fervently without ceasing. Meditate on Scripture, and watch God work it all out because we know who the ultimate victor is. God.
Is the warning dyer? Yes. Is the warning worse than the results of the fasting? Not in a million years. Keep your shields up, girlfriends. Keep your shields up.